How a Data-Driven Marketing Strategy Can Reverse Declining Membership Numbers

May 18, 2015By: Tom McClintock and Teri Carden

Facing stiffer competition and members who had less time to devote to associations, the Kansas City Medical Society used a data-driven marketing and research strategy. Its results: 400 percent membership growth in only one year.

Angela Bedell had a problem. Just recruited to lead the Kansas City Medical Society based largely on her track record for growing associations, she was now expected to somehow stop the erosion the Society's membership had been facing for some time. It was May 2013, and fewer issues commanded the headlines more than the mounting pressure on healthcare to cut costs while increasing services.